The Edmonton Oilers are set to face the Vancouver Canucks in a second-round playoff series on Wednesday night. There are plenty of storylines to follow, but Google Trends is always an interesting place to go when you want to know what the typical Oilers fan on the Internet is looking when it comes to their team.
Borrowing an idea from Allison Stephen at Daily Hive, I got curious. What do fans want to know? What answers are they seeking? Just for something to do, I took a look at the most common trends over the past 30 days (the Oilers playoffs started on April 22) and wanted to know what fans were thinking about. Here are a few of the most interesting that I pulled from the Top 10 rising search results. For context, I used the search term “Edmonton Oilers”, and kept it to searches in Canada, the time frame of the past 30 days, and the sports category under Web Search.
“Oilers Round 2”
As expected, most fans wanted to know as much as they could about the second round of the playoffs, but the search result suggested that fans aren’t necessarily looking for something specific. While diehard fans might want to look into the injuries, goalie chatter, statistics, or other smaller details, it looks like fans just want to get an overall sense of what to expect in Round 2.
To me, I have to assume that most Canadians searching for information about the Oilers wanted a general summary so they were up to speed. The third-highest ranked search term was Game 1, so there was some interest in details about the opener.
“Oilers Round 2 Schedule”
The second most rising search was the Oilers Round 2 schedule, which has been a bit of a thing in Edmonton. First, it was believed the Oilers might play as early as this past Sunday when the ousted the Kings, and the Canucks dispatched of the Predators on the Friday. Then, it was believed the series would start on Tuesday. With arena issues in Dallas, the NHL moved the start of the Oilers and Canucks series to Wednesday. That was quite the delay.
Another area of content for fans has been the start times of the Oilers’ playoff games. Verus the Kings, games were at 8 pm MT and sometimes 8:30 pm. That’s happening again with the Canucks at games will begin at 8 pm MT and 7 PM PT. The game on Sunday might be an earlier start time, but these games are still fairly late for a number of NHL fans, especially those on the east coast who want to watch Connor McDavid.
“Canucks vs. Edmonton”
Another term searched often was the Canucks versus Edmonton, which could be interesting on a few fronts. First, this could indicate, again, that browsers just wanted general information. But, this could also indicate that fans wanted to know the history of these two teams. Specifically, there’s a narrative surrounding the series that the Canucks have an edge here because they swept the Oilers in the regular season. It’s a narrative the players have grown somewhat tired of talking about.
“Oilers Watch Party”
Rounding out the Top Five were the Oilers’ watch parties, which have become quite the spectacle in Edmonton. Because the Oilers start on the road, fans can head over to Rogers Place to watch the games. Important note about the first two games… fans can’t go inside the building as All Elite Wrestling has booked Rogers for their wrestling show on Wednesday called Dynamite and there’s a concert on Friday.
The Oilers’ official site wrote the following:
As Rogers Place will be hosting All Elite Wresting (AEW) on Wednesday, May 8 and Foreigner on Friday, May 10, there will not be indoor Rogers Road Game Watch Parties inside Rogers Place for Games 1 and 2 of the second round. Rogers Road Game Watch Parties will resume for future away games whenever possible. Stay tuned for further details!
